please check back in tomorrow for a talk about the ways that the words "raw" and "honest" are used particularly in response to women's fiction to undermine the work the writer does in crafting sentences and images by suggesting she just poured out a bunch of feelings.

i'm teaching Samantha Hunt today (a certifiable genius), and please pray for the undergrad who claims the successes of the story (A Love Story) are mostly in her willingness to "be honest", as if every single paragraph were not chosen perfectly and for effect.

Marguerite Duras wrote and re-wrote the same experience for SIXTY YEARS, including in two other books, before finding the proper form and structure to communicate it perfectly (in The Lover).